Wish Best of both world: Layout Bal file and json file side by side

[toby]

There are countless requests to move from bal files to json files; here is the latest. But @Erel has pointed out that B4A works better with bal files. Both sides have valid reasons.

It's very easy to make both camps happy by making good use of the existing bal-json conversion tool.

Here is my suggestion or wish.

Whenever a bal file is created or updated, IDE should create/overwrite the corresponding json file by calling the tool behind the scenes.

To Compare layouts, do so on json files, not bal files, in source controls.

If you edit json files manually, it's your responsibility to use the tool to update corresponding bal file.

 

[Alessandro71]

looks like a source of misalignments and confusion.
I vote for a json-native layout editor, with translation to binary format at compile time.
I hope Erel will consider this.

 

[AnandGupta]

At compile time, so many things are done, b4x to java, b4xlib extract etc. to name a few.
So conversion from json to bal is very simple, IMHO, when the code is there.